Spring..... FINALLY! (I hope)

It seems like it's been a really long winter this year. BUT, the signs of spring's arrival are finally here.

Last week, there was a vendor selling flowers in my neighborhood, so I stopped and got some for the bed at my apartment.  The blooms are just starting to open.

When I saw the daylilies, I knew I had to plant them.  They reminded me so much of my dad.

This morning, I saw another VERY Korean sign of spring.  A woman dressed to kill (including her fur coat and leopard print hand bag) was driving her motorbike to work.  When the weather's good, everyone's out and about! 

Gotta love it!

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2011 St. Patrick's Day Festival in Seoul

The Irish meet the Koreans! lol
And yes, that is me you see briefly at 2:22

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Korea is Safe!

Just a quick note, since I've gotten several emails from people concerned about the tsunami in this part of the world.

The islands of Japan basically act as a barrier reef for the Korean peninsula, effectively protecting Korea from things such as the recent tsunami.  Additionally, Korea is a very mountainous country-- so with the exception of the beach areas in the south, most of Korea is similar to the Appalachians in the U.S. 

Seoul is about 200 miles north of the southern coast... it's perfectly safe here.

Sooo.... love you all-- and you don't have to worry!

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Seoul Lantern Festival

Tonight was the last night of the 2010 Seoul Lantern Festival.

It's a little difficult to explain in words a "Lantern Festival". (Fortunately, there are pictures!)  This one was located at Cheongyecheon (which is a stream that starts at City Hall in Seoul and continues for several kilometers.

While most people think of lanterns as small lights you hang, these come in all sizes and shapes. There are hundreds of them, some 15 feet tall (or taller), made in the images of people, animals, landmarks, mythological creatures, etc.  Some depict entire scenes or legends.  It's really amazing considering these are made from paper.

 

 

 

 

 

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Upcoming G-20 Summit

Well, the G-20 Summit is this week.  I think this video probably does the best job of showing what's really going here right now as we lead up to it:

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Moving to Seoul

It's hard to believe I've already been in Korea for a year already! 

Tomorrow, I finish my contract at CDI in Daejeon.  I've enjoyed it here this year and made some great friends. Monday, I'll be starting a position at Uchon Elementary in northeastern central Seoul.

Uchon is a private immersion school, so I'll be a 3rd grade homeroom teacher, teaching various academic subjects in English.  I've met several of the teachers from the school and they all seem to really enjoy working there.

I made a run up to Seoul yesterday to get access to my apartment.  While it's not as large as the one I've had here in Daejeon, it's nice and I think I'll be happy there. 

I'll be losing the balcony and the loft I have in my current apartment, but I think it's a pretty good trade since I'll be gaining 10-12 weeks of paid vacation each year.  One of my reasons for coming to Korea was to have the opportunity to travel and see different countries in this part of the world.  With the new position, I'll have plenty of opportunity to do that and I'm already planning a trip to Thailand in January.

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World Cup

Koreans are really into soccer. I mean REALLY into soccer.

So, I went up to Seoul with friends to watch Korea play in the World Cup. I have no idea exactly how many, but tens of thousands of Koreans were out in Seoul Plaza in the rain to watch the game on giant screens. It was a lot of fun (especially since Korea won).

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Spring!!

Well, it's been another month already! I still can't get over how quickly time's been flying by. I've been here for 7 months already-- wow! And spring is FINALLY here!!

This month has been a month of holidays. First there was St. Patrick's Day. Very little happened on that day, but on the Saturday following there was a big St. Patty's festival up in Seoul. A couple of thousand people were there, including the dozen or so of us who went up together from Daejeon. But when you have all-you-can-drink free Guinness beer, you should expect a crowd. There was also free Irish food, Irish step-dancers and lots of free crazy hats for people to wear. It was a lot of fun.

The following morning the group of us from Daejeon had breakfast at a nice little french restaurant in Itaewon.

The next weekend, we celebrated Passover with one of the Jewish teachers here. It was rather informal, with the running joke being that it should be officially named "Passover in Korea: Whatever works!" There were about 15 of us altogether: some Jewish, some Christian, some Buddhist, some agnostic.

One of the most memorable parts of it to me was when one of the teachers surprised everyone by chanting the "4 Questions" in Hebrew.



Last weekend was Easter. The weather warmed up, so Easter Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day. I had the window open enjoying the nice breeze and could hear some kind of "event" happening at City Hall, which is only about 1/2 a block from my apartment. Now, while it's not uncommon at all to hear things happening there as Koreans are really big on having rallies for all kinds of reasons I was a bit surprised to hear the music to the song "Via DeLarosa" clearly wafting through my window. It was a bit of a nice Easter surprise.

A group of us from my school attended Easter Mass at the only Catholic church in town that has an English service.

I must admit that it's a bit funny to be considered part of the "Outreach to Immigrant Workers". It took me a while to find info an English mass when I arrived so here's the info for anyone who may need it:

Daehwa-dong Catholic Church
Daehwa-dong Sundang (beside Duri Wedding Chapel)
Mass held each Sunday at 4:00pm
Reconciliation each Sunday at 3:30pm
Phone #:010-2010-3907

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Whew... Intensives are over!

Twice a year in South Korea comes the dreaded time known as "Intensives". This is when the public schools take a 1 month break in the winter and another 1 month break during the summer.

Since kids are not in school during the day, all the different types of academies (math, science, English, piano, etc.) offer "Intensive" classes, which are basically just day classes supplementing the afternoon/evening classes. This means that all English teachers have a double load of classes for about a month.

I was lucky this round, since I had a small group of excellent students who actually made teaching my Intensive class quite enjoyable. One particular quirk of this class was that the students REALLY enjoyed it when I played music while they worked. They would sit and sing or whistle to the music while doing all their bookwork.



I did have some fun this month so I'll try to catch everything up here.

First, a group of us went to Seoul for shopping and to help one of the new teachers find the only Jewish synagogue in Korea. So, here's Tyler standing beside an menorah for Hanukkah made out of ice:



Because of the snow, many of the outside "shops" weren't set up, so we went exploring. In one building we found row after row of small shops selling what must be Bali-wood dance outfits.



We found a couple of good buys while we were shopping (and had some tasty Mexican food in Itaewon). The highlight of the trip though was the pie shop that made absolutely incredible apple pies... as well as banana creme, rhubarb, and others:



While walking around, we happened to go past the old eastern gate of Seoul which is beautiful, especially when it's lit up at night.





Last weekend, a different group of us went to Expo Park, a small amusement part here in Daejeon.



I'll post more pics/videos of that later, but the highlight of the day was ice skating-- my first time ever!







So... now that life is getting back to normal, I can catch up on emails, etc.

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Gyeongbok Palace

Well, I finally got a chance to do some sightseeing this weekend. I love to see different historical/cultural sites and have been wanting to see some of them here. This weekend one of my korean friends agreed to take me around one of the palaces up in Seoul. We went to Gyeongbok Palace, the palace that served as the location for state affairs for the longest period of time in Korean history. I got lots of great pics. I'll only copy a few here, but the others are all over on photobucket.









I was able to see a few other things in the area... there's an entire "cultural area" that has some of the various historic aspects mixed into the city. It's kind of odd to see a traditional hanook home next door to a modern apartment building.





On the way home, there was a group of dancers from a church in the subway. I couldn't understand the music, but the dancing was rather pretty.

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Stuck in Seoul (kinda)

Well, I had a great time in Seoul Sunday. Visited a military friend I've made who lives there. He's been stationed here for over 2 years, so he showed me some of the good areas to do some shopping, where the good restaurants are, etc. (Can't wait for my paycheck!)

HOWEVER...

When I'd checked the train schedule online, I made one major mistake. I noticed that there was a train in Daejeon at about midnight... but didn't notice that it was the last one leaving Seoul-- at 11:00! So when I got to the KTX station at 11:03 to catch the train back to Daejeon all the ticket lady could say to me was "no train tonight! no train tonight!" The last one left Seoul 3 minutes earlier.

Fortunately, this is Korea...

So, I just hop on the subway back to Itaewon, do a bit more exploring/window shopping,and finally about 1:30 or so look up a jimjilbang to crash for the night. Didn't get that much sleep, because at about 3am all the Koreans that had been out partying starting wandering in.. so for the next 2 hours or so, there was the shuffling of people all finding their resting place for the night. Here, all the subways close at midnight and don't start again until about 6am, so if you're out late it's usually just as cheap to find the nearest jimjilbang to sleep than to pay for a taxi home. There are jimjilbangs everywhere-- I don't think you can go anywhere in Seoul and be more than a 10 minute walk from one.

And for the 10,000 KW it cost me (a little less than $9) I was able to get up in the morning, take a hot shower and spend an hour or so in the hottubs and steam rooms just relaxing before getting ready to head back to Daejeon. Part of the Korean culture is a focus on "good health"... which translates to a lot of "holistic" health practices-- saunas, aromatherapy, massage, etc. This particular jimjilbang had 3 jacuzzis and a pool in the men's section, as well as both wet and dry saunas (there's a separate section for women). Each of the 3 jacuzzis was set up with a different "therapeutic" purpose. The waters for this jimjilbang come from an underground mineral spring about 1000 ft. deep. One jacuzzi is just the natural mineral water (which contains sulfur among other things). The next one had oils from pineneedles mixed with the water. And the third one had ginseng. Then the pool (not a big swimming pool-- about 3 feet deep, 6 foot wide and 12 foot long) has COLD water. After being in one of the other jacuzzis or in one of the steam rooms/sauna, you're supposed to take a cold dip. Talk about a shock to the system!! I think I understand now why all the Koreans go to jimjilbang after a night out drinking. First steam out the alcohol, then talk about sobering up quick!!

So.. after relaxing for a bit, I headed out, hopped back on the subway to Seoul Station, took the KTX back to Daejeon, and after napping for a little bit got up and ready for work.

I did get some pics on the KTX... so here's some view of Korea going by at about 200 mph:

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On the KTX

Well... I'm learning my way around Korea. As I type this I'm onboard the KTX (the bullet train) headed to Seoul for the night. I deliberatedly made this trip (my first on the KTX) alone-- so that I would know I could get around without having to rely on someone.

I "splurged" by buying a first class ticket for myself for this trip (it costs 33,000 KW instead of 22,000 KW--about $9 more). The train is VERY comfortable and amazingly quiet. I think I may just take a nap til I get there...

Editted to add:
Well, can't get sleep... So figured I'd make a note about the sandwich I bought to eat on the train. Sanwiches in Korea are an interesting thing! Think of the typical sandwich u'd buy at a convenience store in the States.. Cut in half/packaged, etc. EXCEPT... Half of my sandwich was sliced ham, cheese, tomato, dill pickles, and a vegetable kinda like cucumbers, with mustard... And the other half was sliced ham, cheese, ham salad, the cucumberish vegetable and onions. What a combination!!!

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